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How You Can Get Your Content Ranked For The Google Featured Snippet

October 16, 2018

Featured snippets are responses to a user’s search query that are displayed by Google at the top of organic search results but below sponsored links or advertisements. This place is called also called position 0. This result is differentiated from the rest of the results by showing it inside a box. These are blocks that contain exact answers to the user’s query. This feature helps to improve overall SEO Score of a website.

Most of the times, this box also contains an image which is not shown in the case of usual organic results. Google might select an image from one website and text from another.Mainly there are three different types of snippets used by Google and these are paragraphs, lists, and table snippets. Paragraph shows answers to a user’s question in the format of a paragraph. This is the most common type. It can also be in the form of a list. The answers to some queries can be best displayed in the form of numbered or bulleted lists. These type of boxes appear when the user’s search for instructions to do something. Lastly, when the query is about numeral data then the Google snippet can take the shape of a table which facilitates the presentation of numeral data.

SEO Before and After Featured Snippet

It is one of the most sought-after things in SEO today. Every website is striving for this place in the SERPs. Ranking your website with google snippet is not an easy task. If you do not know how to show google snippets in search results, we recommend you to hire a quality SEO services agency just like Ombrella SEO Services. These agencies not only helps to improve SERP but also increase conversion rate.

The impact of featured snippets on SEO cannot be underestimated. Many of the search queries now are answered even without clicking on any link. The user just has to type the search query in the box and hit enter and at the top of the result page, the answer to the query will be given by Google. The reason why Google added this feature is to answer the user’s query as quickly as possible. Queries are answered without clicking on any link effectively saving user’s time. As a result, the user experience will definitely improve.

This has a number of implications for SEO as now large numbers of queries are answered without clicking on any link. If your webpage is not selected by the Google for featured snippet it is possible that no one will click on it even if it is ranked at the top. Most of the user’s queries will be resolved by this box and they won’t feel any need to click on any link in the organic results. This has reduced the referral traffic websites used to get before the arrival of this feature.

All this has made it extremely important for a webpage to rank for the featured snippets. The top position in the results is not as lucrative as snippet box. Google does not automatically rank the number 1 result for any query in this box. In fact, most of the results that rank for this position are from the bottom of the page. The ranking criterion for snippet position is different from the criterion for ranking at the top position. It may sound like additional work to rank separately for top position or for featured snippet but it also offers an opportunity. You can rank for this position even if your webpage is not ranked at the top.

Ranking for snippet box is a lot different from ranking for the top position in the SERPs. Various SEO tactics that were used to rank at the top might not be effective when it comes to ranking for the snippet box. I have prepared a list of tactics that you can undertake in order to ensure that your webpage is the one selected by the Google to feature in the snippet box.

Higher Ranking Helps

Ranking at number one position in the organic search results does not mean that your webpage will be selected for features box. It is very rare that the top result is selected for this purpose. But still, it does not mean that organic search ranking does not matter in this race. Only those webpages can be featured in these positions that are already in the first page of the organic search in other words if you are not among the first 10 results you are not even in this competition. Research has shown that most of the times the webpage that rank for this spot is from the top results in the search engine result pages.

Achieving a top ranking is absolutely necessary if you hope to be selected for this spot. Therefore, if your webpage is not ranked at the top then at first the object of your SEO efforts should be to take your webpage at the top and you can concentrate on featuring in this spot later on.

Fine-Tune Your Keyword Research

Keywords research is the foundation of on which the building of your whole SEO strategy is built. All your SEO effort begins with keyword research. If keyword research is done correctly almost half of the SEO overhaul of the website is also completed. When the object is to rank at the top of the organic result keywords research is used to achieve this goal. Similarly ranking for the snippet position also requires focusing on the certain type of keywords.

Focus on keywords that are in form of questions because these are the types that are most likely to get a featured snippet. As most of the times snippet appear in the format of a paragraph therefore particularly those keywords should be selected whose answers will be in this format.

You should produce such content that answers commonly asked questions in your niche. This can increase the likelihood of your webpage featuring in the snippet box. Long tail keywords should be given priority in your SEO effort as these are ones that are more likely to generate responses displayed in this fashion.

Length Of Paragraph Also Matters

I have already told you that the most common type of snippet is a paragraph. The thing about this format is you can increase your chances of ranking if you use a shorter paragraph in your copy especially at the top of the page. In this regard, it is said that paragraph that contains 50 to 300 words are more likely to get selected. Must use a plagiarism tool for better understanding of the content. The reason behind this could be the difficulty faced when trying to put a long paragraph into those boxes. Therefore you should make sure paragraphs at the top are shorter and you can always give detail in longer paragraphs in the middle section of your webpage.

Tools Can Be Helpful

Tools are a necessity without which SEO cannot be done. There are many activities involved in the search engine optimization of a website that cannot be carried without the use of tools. Even for basic things such as keyword research tools are required.

Due to this dependence of SEO on tools many developers have come forward that focus on developing tools for use in SEO only. These tools can greatly help in the whole search engine optimization process.

Tools can also contribute to getting your webpage selected for snippet spot. There are tools out there that can tell you which keywords are more like to generate a snippet response and you can concentrate your energies on such keywords once you become aware of them. Such keywords cannot be identified except through the use of SEO tools specially designed for this purpose.

Update Your Old Content

Instead of just focusing on creating new content that supports snippet view you can also modify your old content to become more snippets friendly. For this purpose, you can carry out an audit of your content already published on your website and ask yourself the question how this can be revamped to incorporate features that will increase its chances of appearing in the block. Reverse Image search could be helpful for finding the old photos in your data.

As this content is already on your website, therefore, you do not have to invest a lot to become a contender for the snippet spot. You can just make some changes to your previous content and become a contender.

Include More Items In Your Lists

If the content of your webpage is in the form of a list then it is advisable to include at least 10 items in the list if you want to appear in the block. Webpages with more items in their list appear more often at this spot than pages with fewer than 10 items.

The searcher will be prompted to click on your link if your webpage contains more items than a number of items that can be displayed in the box.

Place Snippet Friendly Content at the Top

Most of the times, the content that features at this position is selected from the top of a webpage. If the headline of your article resembles a question then you should briefly answer that question at the start of the article. You can always give details that support your answer later on. Whether or not this trick really works is debatable. Even if it does not word you should follow this rule where ever you can. If this does not impact the chances of getting selected, still it will promote good user experience.

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